Ch 2: Into the Jungle

[Tabs]

Burton fired at the beast, kicking up dirt beside it. "Missed!" he whooped, exhilarated by the "turkey shoot."

[Priest]

Before the echoes of Burton's shot die away, Baxters pistol bucks in his hand spitting lead at the emerging reptile. Seeing the wild shot of the writer, Baxter smiled with delight as he saw his shot hit home, "A little more to the left Burton old chap...There that's how its done"

[Mr. Handy]

Percy's bullet flies true, but it doesn't seem to penetrate the beast's thick hide.

[Supercape]

Another crack...Emelia took aim with her rifle and spat a bullet. Nobody saw were it went.

The Beasts hide was thick, and its eyes went a darker malign black. Its blood curdled into the Nile from Baxter's shot and it writhed around, furious.

Then, with surprising speed, it launched itself to the trees. Could it see them? It seemed it had some primitive idea of where its vexations had arrived. Up close and personal, the predators horrible size and strength were blatant, and it took a strong nerve not to gaze hypnotically at its rows of teeth....

[Tabs]

"Missed again!" cried Burton, still excited, but much more serious this time round. "C'mon, Baxter, Carstairs."

[Priest]

"Not so My dear Burton, see you've hit the blighter" at that Baxter fires a second shot at point blank range. Again the monster is hit, "View haloo!" he yells.

[Mr. Handy]

"We are hitting it!" hisses Percy, lining up another shot. "The bloody thing just doesn't know how to die!" His rifle cracks again, and another bullet strikes home, this time penetrating its scaly armor. "Huzzah!"

[Supercape]

The Crocodile was clearly in pain now. For one moment it looked upwards, peeling Castairs with its black, black eyes. A moment hung in the air. It was somehow old, in the way of millions of years of brutal evolution into a killing machine made you old.

And then its eyes narrowed. And then its eyes widened.

The Crocodile whipped into a frenzy, its tail and body thrashing, its jaws snapping. The trees were not made to resist such assault. Branches snapped and cracked like kindling, and the most furious turbulence hit the trunks, which shook like a tugboat in a storm.

Singh stifled a shriek, but dropped his sabre, both mighty arms wrapped around a thick branch.

"Shoot it, shoot the devil, Mr. Burton! Shoot it!" he pleaded to his "master". It was hard to tell if he was shouting or whimpering.

Emelia gritted her teeth and pulled up her rifle to take another shot, but was promptly unbalanced as the Crocodile smashed into her tree, sending her tumbling to the ground. She was too shocked and scared to scream. A useless crack of her rifle, and a bullet hit the sky. She, meanwhile, tumbled from branch to branch on the way down, and landed in an awkward pile in the undergrowth.

[Priest]

Baxters eyes narrow as the monster smashes the tree trunks in fury and Emilia in tumbled from the branches of her refuge, her rifle firing uselessly as she fell. "Quick Emilia get out of there. Mr Singh, for the love of God, help her"

As he speaks he lines up the pistol for a third shot.

[Tabs]

"Do it!" shouted Burton at Singh, to rescue the hapless Emilia.

[Priest]

Again Baxter's pistol spits fire,and once more the shot hits home, but the crocodile, seemingly oblivious to his wounds, continues his mad attack on the trees. "At this rate we'll never kill the bloody thing. Has no one got a bigger gun?"

[Tabs]

"I've got my knife," called Burton, a little panicky, but very angry at a beast who refused to die, "shall I stab the fucking thing between the eyes?"

[Mr. Handy]

Percy drops his rilfe and slips from the branch, but he manages to grab it with both hands and hang on for dear life.

[Priest]

At Burton's yell, Baxter's vision is filled with images of the Englishman leaping, knife between teeth like some kind of Pirate, upon the heaving, thrashing beast. Thinking it might distract the beast from the defenceless Emilia, he shouts back,
"Indeed it might be worsth a try, old boy"

Glancing aloft to where the valiant Carstairs is clinging for dear life to his wildly swaying tree, earlier such a fine refuge it had seemed, "Hold on Percy, brave Burton is going to poke the creature with his knife"

[Supercape]

"Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal!*" Yelled Singh, his knife between his teeth, as he leapt from branch onto the crocodile.

There he stayed, a fraction of a second, balancing on the back of a crocodile, his arms wavering to keep balance...

...and then with a convulsion, he was thrown off, the Crocodile yelling in pain, enraged and furious. Blood and possibly other unpleasant biological material was being thrown like paint across the jungle, and the Crocodile was less than pleased. As it was, if anyone had the calm mind to study the matter, it would probably not survive its wounds, but it was still, right now, alive, kicking, and most pertinently, biting...

Singh gave a groan as he slammed into a broken tree.

OOC:   *A Sikh war-cry, apparently! 'whoever utters (the phrase following) shall be happy(fulfilled), true is the Holy God'

[Mr. Handy]

Percy hauls himself back onto the branch. Without his rifle, there's not much he can do about the crocodile, but an idea occurs to him. Seizing a vine from the tree, he fashions a lasso on one end with a slip knot and dangles it down in an effort to retrieve his fallen rifle.

[Tabs]

Burton jumped at the crocodile. He tried to match Singh's impressive war cry, but instead gave out a terrified Tarzan-like yell.

[Priest]

Baxter readies himself to fire again, ignoring the sudden appearance of a vine lasoo from Carstairs lofty perch, when without warning the air is split by a strange gurgling scream and without any further ado Burton sails through the air onto the still wildy, thrashing bulk of the crocodile. Baxter holds fire interested to see what happens next.

[Supercape]

The crocodile grew taught, furious and still...and its black eyes focussed on Emelia, who could not help but scream as she started to cock her rifle, awash with fear and determination.

She pulled back her feet just as the Croc snapped onto her, its teeth missing her by a hairs breadth. Half of Emelia's impracticle skirt was torn off. At this point, she was most grateful. Victorian modesty was put to one side, the capacity to run faster without getting tangled up was a well received boon.

The Crocodile wriggle a moment, and spat out her boot.

[Tabs]

Burton's thighs clenched the beasts back as he stabbed at the crocodile's brain, but the blade was turned aside by the reptile's thick, scaly hide.